Weight Loss Journey. Diet Pills? Think Again!
Weight Loss Journal 4
When I was in my early 20’s it was easy for me to lose weight. Keeping it off was always a problem, but losing it wasn’t difficult. I remember times when I lost 8 to 10 pounds in one week.
As I think back now, the diets all seem to meld into one another. I was obsessed with my body image and used my obsession as a “distraction technique” for not dealing with emotional issues in my life. There was always a diet going on. As I got older, it became a little harder to lose the weight.
Through the years there was always at least 15 pounds that I needed to shed. Sometimes it was more like 20 pounds, and as I quickly approached my 30’s, it occasionally crept up to almost 30 pounds of excess weight!
I was on every “FAD” diet there ever was at one time or another. There was the ‘Army Diet’, that was popular in the 1970’s and had absolutely nothing to do with the Army. One specific type of food was allowed per day but nothing else. Bananas one day, salads the next, etc., etc. The ‘Cabbage Soup’ diet allowed for as much cabbage soup as you could eat, and once again, only one food item on each consecutive day. The ‘Zone Diet’, dealt with “meal ratios” and followed a formula of 40% carbs, 30% proteins and 30% fats at every meal. The ‘South Beach Diet’ reminded me of a loose version of the ‘Atkins Diet’.
Then there were the ‘Diet Workshops’ and the ‘Diet Centers’ that included a weekly “weigh-in” and mini “counseling session” and charged a hefty weekly rate. But the easiest weight loss of all, and the most dangerous, was my experience with ‘diet pills’. This weight loss method would also turn out to be the hardest to let go of.
A co-worker referred me to a doctor she knew who would evaluate my weight loss “problem,” and I, innocently enough, made an appointment to see what he would suggest. His suggestion? Pills. Amphetamines. Speed. I didn’t really know what that was at the time. I quickly suspected something was making a “big” change in my body when I was no longer hungry and actually had to try to remember to eat something during the day! That had never happened to me before in my life.
I was happy at first. I had a NEW life, where food wasn’t the focus. I also had a tremendous amount of energy, even though I couldn’t get to sleep at night. The doctor had seemed professional enough. He had asked me all the right questions. “What did I eat?” “ What were my “problem” foods?” “ How much weight did I want to lose?” He seemed sympathetic and even went over a nutritional ‘hand-out’ that was given to all of his patients on their first visit. Then, he handed me what would become the only reason for me to come back to him month after month. That little piece of paper…my prescription for “legal drugs.”
As I look back now, I realize that although I was getting my pills from a “doctor,” I was hooked on “drugs,” and my insurance company was paying for them! It probably took about a year before I realized, and admitted to myself, what was really happening.
I had shed my 20 pounds of excess weight and more. But my personal life was falling apart and I was exhausted and felt ill most of the time. One day I went to fill my newest prescription at the local pharmacy and the pharmacist took me aside and told me that he had heard of my “doctor” and that he had a “bad reputation.” He told me the drugs I was taking were bad for me and that I should stop going to this “quack.”
That was the beginning of the end of my diet pill experience. I knew this had to stop. It was difficult to let go of this weight loss “crutch,” and I fell off the wagon a couple of times, going back for more pills over the next few months. But I was finally able to kick this dangerous “habit.”
A year later, the 20 pounds were back.
*Please continue to read in
Weight Loss Journal 5
